Book reviews

Handbook of Legal Information Retrieval Edited by J Bing, Norwegian Research Centre for Computers and Law, Oslo, in co‐operation with T Fjeldvig, T Harvold and R Svoboda North‐Holland 1984, US $96.25

Information Technology: The Challenge to Copyright. James Lahore, Gerald Dworkin and Yvonne Smyth Sweet & Maxwell and The Centre for Commercial Law Studies 1984, £12.00

Data Processing and the Law Edited by Colin Campbell Sweet and Maxwell 1984, £20.00

Le droit des Contrats Informatiques — Principes — Applications Centre de Recherches informatique et droit des Facultes Universitaires de Namur Maison Ferdinand Larder (Brussels), 1983, 45 FB

Computer Insecurity Adrian R.D. Norman Chapman and Hall 1983, £14.95

The Data Protection Act Richard Sizer and Philip Newman Gower Publishing, 1984, £16.95

The Data Protection Act 1984 Professor Bryan Niblett Oyez Longman Publishing, 1984, £18.00

The Data Protection Act 1984 — A Guide to the New Legislation J. A. L. Sterling CCH Editions, 1984, £15.00

Privacy and Data Protection — An International Bibliography Professor David H. Flaherty Mansell Publishing, 1984, £23.50

Computer Contracts R Morgan & G Stedman Oyez Longman Publishing 1984, 2nd Edition, £27.50

Computer Contracts Handbook Michele Rennie Sweet & Maxwell 1984, £15.00

Computer Contracts — An International Guide to Agreements and Software Protection Hilary Pearson Financial training 1984, £14.95     

Cultural Equivalence and Cultural Variance in Longitudinal Associations of Young Adolescent Self-Definition and Interpersonal Relatedness to Psychological and School Adjustment

Ethnic group differences in the contributions of self-definition (self-worth and efficacy) and interpersonal relatedness with parents and peers to changes in psychological and school adjustment were examined among 448 White, Black, and Latino girls and boys (11–14 years of age). Self-report questionnaires and school records were evaluated for socioeconomic and ethnic group differences in patterns of change over 1 year. Overall similarity in changes over time across ethnic groups was found for relatedness, self-definition, and psychological adjustment, although Black and Latino youth reported more overall adjustment difficulties, Black youth reported less positive relationships with parents, and lower SES youth reported less positive peer relationships than others. Ethnic group differences in changes to school adjustment, even after controlling SES, suggested a cultural variation in which often cited declines in school adjustment during middle school characterize White adolescents to a greater degree than Black or Latino adolescents. Ethnicity moderated associations of relatedness and self-definition with psychological and school adjustment such that Black and Latino youth appeared particularly vulnerable to experiences that threaten closeness and trust in relationships. Results pointed to potentially important situational and cultural differences in maladaptive and adaptive developmental processes across ethnicity.     

Measuring changes in women's empowerment and its relationship to intimate partner violence

This article uses survey data to examine changes over time in the relationship between women’s empowerment and intimate partner violence (IPV) in six Bangladeshi villages. Prior analyses using a limited set of empowerment indicators available in both 2002 and 2014 suggested a persistent positive association between empowerment and IPV. The article’s analysis, using an updated set of measures derived from extensive qualitative studies, suggests that empowerment may be shifting from a risk factor for IPV to a protective factor. The article discusses the methodological limitations posed by the shifting manifestations of empowerment and its social meanings within and across settings.     

The Party Systems of the Australian States: Patterns of Partisan Competition, 1945-1986

There has been a longstanding interest in the relationship betweenthe party system in reflecting regional diversity and maintainingthe dispersal of power in federations. Given the relative scarcityof information on this question in the Australian federation,this article examines the extent to which the party systemsof the Australian states differ by looking at a number of indicatorssummarizing patterns of partisan support in elections and legislaturesover a period of forty years. Its findings demonstrate persistentdifferences in the structure and dynamics of the state partysystems. In particular, the study shows that, in spite of thedichotomizing tendencies of a parliamentary system, electoralcompetition in the A ustralian states is characterized by astrong tendency to dispersed multi-partyism rather than simplebipartyism, although the individual states occupy varying positionswithin this range. The charting of this partisan diversity isimportant in questioning some of the presumptions of regionaluniformity that have been applied to the study of the Australianfederal system.     

On James Burnham’sThe Machiavellians

Sidney Hook, senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, is emeritus professor of philosophy and former head of the All-University Department at New York University. Among the thirty books he has written or edited are Education for Modern Man, Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life,and Philosophy and Public Policy.Most recently, he has written Marxism and Beyondand his autobiography, Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century.This article will be used as an introduction to a new edition of James Burnham’s The Machiavelliansto be published by Regnery Gateway, Inc.     

The rural proletariat and the problem of rural proletarian consciousness

‘The rural proletariat’ has been employed as a sociological category to describe Caribbean populations for nearly 25 years, but confusion about such populations persists. Proletarianisation, the definition of rural proletariats, and the Marxist conception of consciousness, as applicable to such groups, are discussed in the following paper. The Cuban case is described to exemplify the European bias of some analysts, and the difficulties created by an uncritical transfer of western conceptions of class and of class consciousness to a colonial agrarian situation. A special effort is made to conceptualise the rural proletariat in terms of its relationships to the peasantry, and of the ‘concealment’ of landless workers in peasant communities.     

Blurring the line between licit and illicit: transnational corruption networks in Central Asia and beyond

The anti-corruption norm in both scholarship and the policy world has too narrowly focused on the domestic and institutional context of bribe-taking and public corruption. Instead, we argue that corruption in the contemporary global economy requires a multiple set of connected transactions, processes, and relationships that take place within informal transnational networks that blur the line between illegal and legal activities. These networks include multinational companies, elites in host countries, offshore financial vehicles and conduits, middlemen and brokers, and destination financial institutions. We examine how these actors operate in Central Asia, a region that is widely identified as corrupt, yet is rarely understood as embedded in the types of global processes, offshore connections and transnational links specified in our analysis. Examples of offshore centers in tax planning from Central Asia, and partial results from a field experiment based on impersonating high corruption risks from four Central Asian states, provide evidence for how the various actors in transnational financial networks structure their dealings. We then present two brief illustrative cases of how these transnational networks have operated in energy explorations services in Kazakhstan and telecommunications contracts in Uzbekistan. Our findings have theoretical, practical, and normative implications for scholars and practitioners of Central Asian international political economy and other ‘high risk' regions.